Eight years in office, a $10.6 trillion debt

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By David M. Dickson

President Bush has nearly doubled the national debt during his eight years in the White House. As he prepares to return to Texas next month, Mr. Bush is on track to add $5 trillion to the $5.73 trillion national debt he inherited when he took office. According to Treasury Department data, the number was $10.66 trillion at the end of November, and it has been rising at an astronomical rate.

During fiscal 2008, which ended Sept. 30, the national debt increased by more than $1 trillion, breaking the previous fiscal year record of more than $600 billion. The national debt includes obligations held by the public as well as the intragovernmental debt in trust funds such as those operated by Medicare and Social Security.

The government's debt situation is about to get worse.

"Federal debt should increase by $2 trillion in fiscal year 2009," said Stan Collender, a longtime budget analyst who is the managing director at Qorvis Communications.

"We are in a situation where you do what you have to do to get the economy moving again," said Mr. Collender, who then issued a warning about the consequences of the soaring debt level. "It will complicate federal-debt financing and fiscal policy for decades."

For example, given an average interest rate of 4 percent, the $5 trillion in national debt that has accumulated so far during the Bush administration could require an additional $200 billion per year from taxpayers in interest on that debt - in perpetuity.

During October, the first month of fiscal 2009, the national debt increased by a staggering $549 billion. That was approximately three-quarters of $1 billion every hour of every day, or more than $12 million per minute and more than $200,000 per second.

Treasury borrowed a lot of money in October to give to the Federal Reserve, which needed the funds to lend to American International Group (AIG) and other financial firms and to finance an array of "liquidity facilities" into which the Fed has been pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in order to thaw the world's frozen credit markets.

Much of this money should return to the Treasury eventually, Mr. Collender said.

"There is never a guarantee," he said. "For example, what if AIG goes belly-up and the loans become worthless?"